Food, Culture, and Evolution: Why We Make Bad Decisions About What We Eat

Can food ruin a person's life? Sure it can. When we attach misplaced values of what's "right" to eat and what's "wrong" to eat, we can become so wrapped up in "eating well" that we don't consume enough of the good stuff: vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. And that's just the dietary side of things - let's not forget the pitfalls of poor budgeting. $5,000 of credit card debt seems pretty devastating, doesn't it? That's like 300 or 400 meals from places like McDonalds, Chipotle, and Boston Market (assuming you buy a drink with your meal).

Unfortunately, these are the kinds of financial bills we run up when we don't pay attention to what we eat. Eating out once a day - just lunch, for example, or a quick take-out for dinner before studying for that midterm - can easily add a couple thousand dollars to your credit card bill over the course of one year. Now, $5,000 a year in added expenses doesn't sound like bankruptcy - it's when you add in rent, car payments, back-to-school clothes, health insurance, and the rough economy that it starts getting bad. Within two or three years, a daily habit of poor meal choices can defeat the best-laid financial plans.

The most important component of any food budget is balance. There's no use writing up a plan when our brains are deprived of nutrients - not only is it impossible to think straight when your hungry, but an intense need to food can lead you to make the rash decisions which lead to interest payments and overeating.

The problem for many of us is that we've become so concerned with food that it becomes impossible to make planned, logical choices about what we eat. Rather than cooking a few pounds of pasta and spaghetti sauce and enjoying that for the rest of the week, we wonder if that's "healthy enough" or "tasty enough" for a whole week. We then put off our choices of what to eat until we're already hungry, and that's a bad time to choose what you want to eat. Hunger doesn't just cloud your judgment - it shifts your body's natural cravings to the "redline," so-to-speak.

From an evolutionary standpoint, we are remarkably functional, even when we're hungry. Our bodies are so well adapted to famine that we can actually survive for unhealthy periods of time without food. We can do this because our bodies feature a flexible metabolism - unlike many animals, we can draw energy from almost any kind of food.

When our bodies feel the threat of famine - basically, any time we're hungry - our cravings shift in order to guarantee the intake of essential nutrients. Yes, complex carbohydrates are good, but we can live without them. Our brains, on the other hand, require sugar. Critical organs like the liver and adrenal glands must have certain quantities of saturated fats in order to function. And without salt, our bodies lose the ability to transport fluids and nutrients between cells. This is the reason why hamburgers and donuts taste ninety-percent better when we're famished, whereas rice and potatoes taste pretty much the same no matter when you eat them: when we're hungry, we crave the fats, proteins, and sugars of all the "bad" foods we're taught to eat in moderation. The only effective way to short-circuit the downward spiral of binging on fats, sugars, and salts is to eat healthy foods before instinct takes over and forces hunger to rule our lives.

Poor eating habits don't indicate that a person is "weak" or "greedy." Nutritionally, there are actually two parts to the poor eating choices we make. The first part comes in depriving ourselves of food. Setting aside cases of anorexia and bulimia, most healthy Americans purposefully starve themselves at some point in their lives, often on a weekly basis. Whether it's putting off dinner to "finish just this last piece or work" or skipping breakfast in order to "get started," we shortchange our mental faculties by putting off our nutritional needs.

This is largely a cultural phenomenon - we attach an inordinate value to the habit of working hard at the expense of personal comfort. Catchphrases like "sleep is for the weak" are symbolic of our cultural tendency toward burn-out.

Fortunately, our brains and bodies are built to protect us from our own misguided attempts at starvation and overwork. When we pass out for ten and twelve hours at a stretch, it's the body restoring itself to full operating capacity. Memories are cataloged, muscles repaired, and food digested. Likewise, our bodies encourage us to eat foods that will sustain us through difficult times. This, in turn, leads to the second part of poor eating decisions: we choose to eat foods which will not sustain us for the long-term. Donuts, hamburgers, and coffee will keep you mentally alert and functional - trust me, it's a magical combination if you're pulling an all-nighter - but this is also a recipe for constipation, dehydration, and weight-gain. The cravings which kick in when we're hungry aren't the result of careful budgeting - they're the result of cold, hard instinct.

In order to make healthy eating decisions, we need to take care of our bodies.  It starts with breakfast - whether it's a few pieces of fruit, a bowl of cereal, or even just a glass of orange juice, it helps to start the day with energy.  From there, we need to plan ahead.  Waiting for hunger to strike before choosing a meal is not the recipe for long-term health and nutrition.  Instead, we need to consume fruits, vegetables, carbs, proteins, and fats regularly, knowing that we need a steady and reliable intake of fuel to keep our bodies in good condition.

The next step - and this is just as important - is that we need to listen to our bodies.  In the list above, I've ordered these foods in the way I find works best for my own metabolism.  Generally, I need at least two helpings of carbs for every helping of meat, and I don't feel at-my-best unless I eat fruit and vegetables throughout the course of the day.  But not everyone is built this way.  Some find that a vegetarian diet works much better for their needs.  While I tend to feel sluggish and sometimes even light-headed unless I eat either sugar or protein with my heavier carbs, others may feel sluggish if they add meat to a meal of grains and vegetables.  The key is to find out what foods - and in which ratios - work best for you.

In doing this, I recommend two excellent places to start.  In examining your dietary choices, you'll want to take a look at the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for a 2,000 calorie diet.  First, you'll need to get an idea of how much dietary fiber, sodium, protein, and fat you're consuming.  These are major areas of your diet that must be maintained on a daily basis in order to ensure reliable brain function - too much or too little of any of these can have detrimental effects on your health.

Next, look at your your total calories, vitamin C, and calcium intakes.  Your total calories are important, yes, but not as important as the source of those calories.  As we know from the effectiveness of the Atkins Diet (the all-protein-no-carbs diet cuts weight while overworking your internal organs), the body's metabolism is sensitive not only to the number of calories, but also their source.

Finally, be sure to account for your fluid intake.  Recent common wisdom recommends eight glasses of water per day, but I don't recommend using this as a hard rule.  In my own experience, drinking only water - and drinking too much of it - can lead to just as many problems as not drinking enough.

Your personal fluid intake needs will vary widely based on your diet and level of activity.  Water is a key component of metabolism and the single most important element of physical homeostasis (basically, the balance of fluids, pressures, and rates of metabolism).  Protein digestion requires far more water than digesting carbs - if you eat a lot of meat, you'll need to drink more water than someone who eats more carbohydrates.  Athletes need to water to maintain a higher metabolism and to ensure adequate fluid for cooling the body.  Likewise, if you are continually exposed to cold - e.g. you refuse to spend money on heat during the winter and your bedroom is a steady 55^oF - then you'll need more water in order to keep your metabolism high enough to maintain a healthy temperature of 98.6^oF.

So pay attention to your body.  Think about what you've consumed during the day and how you've felt - physically speaking - at the end of the day and the start of the next day.  And don't wait until you're hungry or thirsty - make sure to take in the foods and fluids you need as you need them, ideally around the same times each day.  Find out what works best for you.  Whether it's three large meals or a dozen snacks spread across the day, make sure to the get nutrients you most need in order to live well.